Second Amendment Challenge to Cook County IL Gun Ban Moves Forward

July 10, 2012 /
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Wilson Combat 6.8 Spc Ar15 M4 Variant

NRA – ILA

Charlotte, NC –-(Ammoland.com)- On April 5, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously denied an attempt by Cook County, Ill., to dismiss a challenge to the county’s California-style ban on countless types of common semi-automatic firearms.

The National Rifle Association supported the case brought by the NRA’s state affiliate, the Illinois State Rifle Association.

In its decision, the court reversed a lower appellate court’s ruling that upheld the ban merely because it was “similar” to bans that had been upheld elsewhere. But of the three cases cited by the lower court, two relied on “facts” provided in legislative findings and testimony by anti-gun legislators and gun ban lobbyists; the third involved a challenge to federal regulation of fully automatic machine guns, rather than semi-automatic firearms.

Adopting a much more rigorous approach, the Illinois Supreme Court found it couldn’t say the guns banned by Cook County “categorically fall outside the scope of the rights protected by the [Second Amendment].” Therefore, the case has been returned to the trial court for more fact-finding.

Key to the final outcome will be evidence that the guns in question are “in common use” and “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” which are the standards that the U.S. Supreme Court suggested would determine whether a particular type of “arm” falls within the Second Amendment’s protections.

On that issue, the numbers are overwhelming. Based on production statistics published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, about 3.1 million AR-15 rifles have been made just since 1986, and AR-15s alone made up 4.3 percent of all firearms and 13.3 percent of all rifles sold in the U.S. from 2007 to 2010. The AR-15, of course, is just one of the many firearms banned in Cook County.

These figures go to show that Cook County hasn’t just banned “common” guns; it has banned the most popular rifles of our time, used by countless law-abiding Americans for every kind of lawful purpose.

About:Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.